


What Grows in New York City

by orphan_account



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Bullying, Crushes, F/M, High School, Teenage Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 00:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1962294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She never thought high school crushes would be a problem for her, but then bug-boy had to come along and ruin everything. Gwen Stacy muses on her developing feelings toward Peter Parker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Grows in New York City

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic! Ever! Kind of nervous.
> 
> I'm sort of obsessed with the TASM movie-verse right now. I've always loved Spider-Man and these films just feel...right? Especially when it comes to the Gwen/Peter relationship. So this is my excuse to write Gwen internally gushing about Peter. I tried to get the dialogue from the films right, but I probably made some mistakes. Be merciful~

He fascinates her in a way she can't really describe.

Everyone in her school is so quick to say she could have anyone she wanted. Because she's beautiful (empirically so), and she's the smartest in all her classes (except for physical education, since her attempts usually end with her tangled in a volleyball net), and she always gets what she wants (because she views persistence as a virtue).

So she shouldn't be thinking about _him_. She should be thinking of the endless queue of other boys who are as persistent as she is: the ones who don't run away at the sight of her father (or her one younger brother who has managed to grow a head taller than Gwen already), and who have all the conventionally good looks, money, and prestige a girl of her standing could hope for in a partner.

But she thinks about him anyway. Does more than think, really. She obsesses in the way she always does. Though, usually, her obsessions involved Marie Curie books and her scarf collection and that one embarrassing year in junior high when she swore Justin Timberlake would be her future husband.

She never obsesses about _real_ things, though. Not tangible things, anyway. Not the sort of things she could reach out and touch if she wanted.

 

* * *

 

_I'd really like to touch him._

Sometimes when he shifted around in his desk the back of his jacket would move down to reveal the soft hair on his nape.

When he walked past her on the way to his desk, she could feel his warmth in that brief span of seconds.

She could _smell_ him, too, and he smells like a boy. Sweat and a tinge of asphalt from all his skateboarding, a cheap body wash that was probably meant to smell spicy but came closer to metallic, and a musk that's indescribably him.

Ten minutes out of an hour long class period were devoted to how good he smelled and how it made her want to press herself into his chest to let the smells overpower her nostrils.

Gwen would rather not think too hard about how much of a primitive animal she'd become.

 

* * *

 

She'd catch him looking at her and he would quickly turn his head away. The skin on his nape would flush and the color would travel all the way to his ears. Somehow, his blush made her blush, too. There was madness in the world and it could be found at the back of Peter Parker's head.

There were a lot of days in class where she wished she could muster up the courage to not turn her eyes away when she saw him ready to cast a glance. But no. She couldn't be that brave, as stupid as it seemed for all her “moxie” (as her dad liked to say).

Gwen wasn't ready to be so vulnerable.

* * *

 

She saves him.

It's not really a storybook kind of rescue or even something you'd find in a James Bond film. More like a quick crack of the whip aimed at Flash, that dunderhead, so he drops Peter before an inevitable ride on the flagpole. She never understood why Flash hates Peter so much. Maybe he's compensating for something.

Peter skulks off. He's bruised and slouched over like the strike to his gut hurt more than he'd let on, and Gwen has to force herself to walk to class without stopping him and asking _why._

Why did he always do that? Why did he put himself in positions to be hurt, over and over, despite being outmatched? Why did he continue to do it even when no one ever thanked him?

She'd like to ask him. She'd like to ask him a lot of things, really; even things that had nothing to do with his constant, stupid heroics. She wanted to ask him ridiculous questions, like whether he'd ever watched Bill Nye as a kid or if he'd even _watched_ TV as a kid or had he been one of those freaky child prodigies who never got to do anything.

She wanted to ask what cologne he wore. And what his favorite food was. And if he ever felt lonely or if it was natural for him to be...apart.

But she doesn't. Because she's not an idiot. And maybe, just maybe, she's a little bit of a coward.

 

* * *

 

She doesn't ask Peter Parker _why_ , but she spends more time than is likely sane trying to figure it out. The why behind his daring rescues. The why that existed beneath his every stupid, ill-conceived attempt to rescue someone from Flash or any of the D- future pencil pushers who tormented their peers.

It was the kind of why that her father might have chuckled at. She asked him _why_ as well, whenever he was put in the hospital because some criminal got lucky. Those days spent at his bedside, sometimes crying and sometimes just being resigned, all while he placed one of his calloused hands on her head and whispered about how she'd understand "worthwhile sacrifices" someday.

Maybe she does understand. On the days in her childhood when Gwen would stand nose-to-nose with one of her little brother's bullies despite how sure she was in her gut she'd get a bloody nose for her effort. Days where she repeats those childhood events by facing up to Flash, though she knows he's more scared of her than she is of him. After all, she has Flash's grade point average perilously perched in her hands.

That might be what confuses her most about Peter. He has _no_ power. He doesn't have strength, or a cop father to back him up, or the other advantages Gwen can wear like armor.

He has a dirt poor aunt and uncle who can barely afford to buy Peter new clothes every school year. He has a bright, ingenious mind Gwen knows could accomplish great things, but he can't exactly use that to fend off Flash's hurricane of punches. He has no friends. He has no support. He has--nothing.

But he fights anyway. And he doesn't fight just for the sake of fighting. He fights because it's the right thing to do.

Which _should_ under any practical circumstances make him an idiot. He wouldn't win any awards for stupendous tactical pursuits, that was for sure.

However, despite how undeniably foolish his every act of bravery might be, it doesn't stop him from being right.

 

* * *

 

Another daring rescue. Another litany of punches. Another scattering of bruises across Peter's face and Gwen could be sure elsewhere.

"I thought it was great--what you did out there. It was stupid, but it was great."

_What am I doing?_

"You should probably go to the nurse. You might have a concussion."

Peter raises his head from his arms and she dies a little inside. He looks tired, or maybe it's more like woozy. Would make sense, what with the way Flash had thrown him down like a professional wrestler.

"What's your name?" she says.

He blinks at her like a startled deer. She can't stand his eyes. They're _enormous_. She shouldn't talk, since even her close family liked to comment on how her eyes could swallow people up like whirlpools, but Peter's eyes are totally different. Warm, inviting, a sort of enveloping brown that would make hot cocoa envious. She kind of wants to clap a hand over them so she doesn't have to be held in his stare. 

She toys with the pen on her desk instead. She needs to do something with her hands.

Peter speaks, finally. "You don't know my name?"

"No, I know your name." She smiles at Peter and doesn't bother to hide how much she's teasing him. "I just wanna know if you know your name."

"Peter," he says.

She can't tell if he thinks she's insane or if he's too delirious to care. Gwen nods at him to encourage him to continue. At this point, she's half-serious about testing for that concussion. He looks like he's grasping for clear thoughts right behind his eyes.

"Parker. Peter Parker."

"Okay. Okay, good."

Gwen turns back around. She pretends to ignore him, though that's further from the truth. Even as she doodles useless geometric shapes in her notebook, she keeps her eyes on him as subtly as she can. She can feel his gaze on her, too. It makes the hairs on the back of her neck raise a little and her fingertips tingle from _wanting._

She turns back to him after only a second. Maybe, Gwen thinks, she might say something significant. She might say something that will make him smile again.

"I'd still go to the nurse, though."

Not exactly what she'd had in mind, but he doesn't pull away.

"You're Gwen, right?"

She smiles. "Gwen Stacy."

This time, she turns away for good.

 _No...not for good_ , she thinks.

Gwen risks one last glance in his direction. She catches his eyes. He looks down at his desk before she can even blink.

_Not for good. Because something's beginning here._

 

* * *

 

Maybe it wasn't the garden a plant sprung from which made it grow into something amazing. Maybe it was something more than that. 

The rain of dirt piled on top of a seed, forcing it to grow or suffocate under the pressure.

Someone's nurturing touch guiding the seedling upward.

Sunlight.

She runs her fingers through his hair while her mouth presses against his brow.

She settles against his chest. He sighs, and it's such a trembling sound she could weep.

They kiss. More sunlight.

_You're a wildflower that grew from the cracks of a New York City sidewalk, Peter Parker.  
_

 

 

 

 


End file.
